Groups of Filipinos are being paid by scalpers to line up to buy tickets to concerts in Hong Kong, with some recently camping out for up to one week to be the first to secure entry to see popular Taiwanese band Mayday.
A group of about 15 Filipinos told the Sing Tao Daily they had been lining up on a rotational basis outside the Tom Lee Music store in Kowloon Bay since March 22 to buy tickets for their “employers.”
They were told to buy six tickets each with the cost of one ticket at HK$1,180 (US$150). At first the Filipinos denied they were being paid to line up, but one later told a reporter that their employers would resell the tickets at a profit.
Meanwhile, tents, mattresses and a line of people were seen outside other ticket selling shops in Cameron Road in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hoi Ting Road in West Kowloon for one week, news website HK01.com reported. Most of those lined up were South Asians and Indonesians.
An Indian and an Indonesian who were queued up on Hoi Ting Road told a reporter their group numbered 10 and they had been there since March 22 on the orders of their employers. Each were told to buy four HK$1,180 concert tickets each and they would be paid a “queuing fee,” but they would not disclose the amount.
A local woman and a fan of the Taiwanese band said she and her friends started queuing to get tickets on March 21, but found 11 South Asians already lined up. She said she learned the “queuing gang” could earn a daily salary plus HK$400 for each ticket they bought.
Mayday, a five-member Taiwanese band, will perform six concerts at Hong Kong Disneyland from May 4 to 13. In the past, tickets to their concerts sold out in minutes with scalpers snapping up bundles of them to resell at significantly higher prices.
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